2 - Pre-war Liverpool and the Territorial Force

Summary

The character of a Territorial unit before the Great War was rooted in the civilian life of its part-time soldiers. Its traditions were derived from the social status and values of its members and the locality from which it was recruited. Thus, to understand the characteristics and traditions of the Territorial battalions before and during the war, we must first examine the social and political life of the city from which they came.

On the eve of the Great War, Liverpool was a prosperous commercial centre. Since the late eighteenth century its port had grown in importance and by 1907 it handled one third of British exports and a quarter of the import trade. Liverpool's financial institutions had also gradually increased in stature, with its corn and cotton exchanges, underwriters and insurance companies playing a crucial role in the world economy in 1914.

The port of Liverpool determined the nature of employment available to its inhabitants and thus influenced the social composition and character of the city. It was a city which generated wealth solely through the distribution of goods and celebrated the fact that it had little manufacturing industry of its own. The self-styled second metropolis saw itself as a genteel centre of commerce, unsullied by industrial factories, and asserted its superiority over manufacturing rival Manchester through the popular adage, ‘Liverpool gentlemen, Manchester men’.

By 1914 the city of Liverpool was the centre of a much larger conurbation, which had gradually expanded on either side of the River Mersey.